Archive for the ‘Arizona State’ Category

A look at what the newspapers are saying a day after they’ve had time to digest Saturday’s action.

Beat a team 70-0, so what. That’s no reason to relax, especially with the mighty Rockets from Toledo coming to town Saturday. Coaches don’t let Wildcats relax [Tucson Citizen]

Sun Devil freshman had an opportunity to play against Northern Arizona, exposing them to their first college football action. Coach Dennis Erickson was more focused on getting them some experience than the results on the field. ASU’s late dip vs. NAU doesn’t worry Erickson [East Valley Tribune]

California Head Coach Jeff Tedford chose Kevin Riley as his QB right out of fall camp. After Saturday’s win over Michigan State, the gap between Riley and last year’s starter Nate Longshore seems even greater. Riley was telling the Cal students to stop booing Longshore after he threw his second pick of the day in his new, limited role. Cal’s Tedford gets QB decision right…twice [Contra Costa Times]

Oregon QB Justin Roper is feeling better after suffering a concussion on Saturday. Also, starting LT Fenuki Tupou will be back this week after being suspended for accepting a lunch and $100 from an agent. Tupou has since donated $110 to charity. Ducks’ stock ticks up [The Register-Guard]

Tyrone Willingham keeps all his practices closed expect the first 25 minutes. It looked like Oregon had been practicing with the Huskies all season, maybe even had a copy of their playbook. With BYU coming to town this week, UW doesn’t have a lot of time to get this fixed. Washington’s game plan was an open book to Oregon [Seattle Times]

After watching film of the Oklahoma State game, Coach Paul Wulff still sees a team that made too many mistakes. Wulff was impressed with the offense in the 3rd quarter, stresses the fact that it should run that smooth all game long. Looking back at Saturday’s game [Spokesman-Review]

***Isn’t it nice when 18-year old kids are going to play a prominent role with your football team. That’s an advantage if your a high school coach, a very scary proposition if your a college coach.***

Berekly, CA – California head coach Jeff Tedford named his starter, Kevin Riley will start against Michigan State. This means that Nate Longshore will be watching from the sideline, at least for the first few games barring injury.

Eugene, OR – Rob Moseley gives us his season predictions for the Ducks. Rob approached his predictions a little differently, rather than just predicting each game he assigned a value to each game that represented how many times he believes Oregon would win if the teams played 10 times.

Los Angeles, CA – UCLA is preparing for their Labor Day battle with Tennessee by outlining which freshman will play. If your math is correct, 9 true freshman will not redshirt and help the Bruins this season.

Tempe, AZ – Freshman are making an impact with ASU as well, WR Gerell Robinson is catching on and understanding the more complex offense better. A better name for the “bubble”, how about the Sun Devil Sauna???? No. We don’t think so either.

Pullman, WA – New head coach Paul Wulff gave the Cougars a grade of C+ for their first week of efforts. While the players may not be picking up the new playbook as fast as the coaches would like, they are definitely getting the hitting part down pat. A little fire after the play is over, showing that a 10th-place prediction doesn’t mean much in the land of wheat.

Seattle, WA – The University of Washington may soon hire a new Athletic Director. All we can say is, it’s about damn time. Having been without a permanent hire since January, the Huskies need to find some stability in their athletic programs. They currently have a head football coach who knows less about his starting QB’s injury than the kid’s father. Or at least Scott Locker is willing to share the information with the media, while the tight-lipped Willingham prefers to play dumb. Also, moving over to the Sports Blogging Network in the next week or two is the UW Football Blog.

Eugene, OR – Big love for Oregon DB (what position does he really play? Safety? Rover? We don’t know, but want to.) Patrick Chung who Sporting News says might be the best defensive player in the country! It seems everybody in the conference is having QB problems, but Oregon’s QBs looked decent in their scrimmage Saturday. It’s only 19 more days until the hated Huskies arrive in Eugene.

Los Angeles, CA – With UCLA starter Ben Olson getting hurt and subsequently being out eight weeks, the QB race is suddenly wide open again. The coaches want to have a starter in place in exactly two weeks, so we’ll see who decides to take the reigns.

Tempe, AZ – The nomadic Ryan McFoy may have finally found his place on the field, as a linebacker. It has to be tough getting moved around like that, although forgetting your thigh pads will get you noticed.

Berekley, CA – After a week of practice and three days in pads, injuries at California are starting to add up. It’s good to hear that RB Jahvid Best is finally returning to full health, something that Cal will need if it wants to finish near the top of the conference.

Palo Alto, CA – With a new defensive coordinator, the Cardinal defense returns 11 players who made starts last season and hope to improve on last year’s ninth-worst Pac-10 defense. In recruiting news, Stanford has offered a scholarship to Joe Montana’s son. Nick Montana is currently a junior who is competing for the starting QB job at Oaks Christian High.

*A daily look at what’s happening in the world of college football, west coast-style.

Ted Miller visited Arizona State’s practice and had some notes for us. Looks like the depth issue at WR may not be as dire as first thought. [Ted Miller’s Blog]

In his usual quick-hitting format, Scott Wolf tells us USC OL Daniel Campbell will not be attending USC, but rather he is enrolled at Hargreaves Military Academy in Virginia. [Scott Wolf]

Lots of good notes from the Husky’s first practice today from Bob Condotta. Noteably, Jake Locker looked more accurate, the coaches were fired up, and suspended LB E.J. Savannah was watching practice. Eat this coverage up Husky fans because starting tomorrow the media only gets to watch the firts 25 minutes of practice. [Bob Condotta]

“But I also think I’m an easy target since I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I get mad and fiery and do things quarterbacks don’t do. But I just want to win. I think it gets misconstrued that I’m a crybaby when I’m just competitive.”

First impression of Arizona State’s QB Rudy Carpenter: Relax. The guy always seems to be pumping his fist, screaming, or generally, just acting annoying. But, does that make him a jackass or just a really emotional player?

When you aren’t an Arizona State fan he looks like a jackass. The kind of guy you want to get his head taken off by a safety on a delayed blitz. From this article, he may just be a guy who really wants to win. There is two ways to show your competitiveness. One, is to act like Carpenter, you scream and gesture at the other team or slams his helmet to the turf after a bad play. Two, is more like Brett Favre (since no one is talking about him these days), you show emotion, pump your fist, high-five but you do it with your teammates, not directed at the opponent.

As a sports fan, we want our players acting in the second manner. Nothing good can come from antagonizing the opposition, expect maybe a desire to drill you into last Saturday. And if you slam your helmet, you better be sure you don’t make a teammate think your showing him up in public. In Carpenter’s case, a receiver drops a pass and Rudy screams at him. Does that help? Does that make Carpenter a good or bad teammate?

So, is he a crybaby you deserves to be pummeled, or is he a competitor showing his emotions?

*We are going to be breaking down the Pac-10 schedule week-by-week to find out which game is the best every Saturday. By “best,” we mean which game you should stop what your doing, make a sandwich, grab a beer, and sit on your ass and watch for 3+ hours.

The Week 4 Slate:Arizona at UCLAGeorgia at Arizona StateBoise State at OregonSan Jose State at StanfordPortland State at Washington State

Compared to Week 3, this week is relatively light for the Pac-10. Only 5 games, with one of them being against a FCS opponent. What does that mean: An easy win for Washington State and four games for us to breakdown for best game.

The one conference match-up is Arizona visiting UCLA. This game features two teams that should finish between 5th-7th in the conference race. It is the first conference game for both teams and a must-win for Mike Stoops at Arizona. This is the kind of game that Stoops and previous UCLA head coach Karl Dorrell had a hard time winning. We all know what happened to Dorrell, Stoops may be next.

Stanford has the easiest game of the week other than WSU. The Cardinal face San Jose State, who they beat 37-0 last year. This is the easiest game on Coach Jim Harbough’s schedule so he better take advantage of it.

That leaves us with two games: Boise State at Oregon, Georgia at Arizona State. We love both these games. BSU at Oregon will be a real test for the Broncos. They are picked to win the WAC by almost all major preseason magazines, Phil Steele even says that if they can beat Oregon they have a shot at another BCS Bowl Game. BSU RB Ian Johnson hopes to return to his 2006 form and Oregon QB Nate Costa will most likely be making his third start in front of the Autzen faithful.

Once again, our game of the week features two BCS conferences going head-to-head. This time, just like Week One, it’s SEC at Pac-10. The Bulldogs from Georgia, picked by many to win the National Championship, have to travel to the desert to face by far their toughest non-conference opponent. An away game against a Dennis Erickson-coached team with the most experienced QB in all of college football is not an easy task. If Arizona State pulls off the upset then they will have full-blown NC dreams themselves. A game with a possible National Title riding on it is the main game of the weekend for us. (Of course we’re gonna watch every game, but this one trumps all.)